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ADDRESSES AT THE TENTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 

LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 

MAY 29, 1901 



THE GOSPEL OF WORK 

George Mann Richardson 
Professor of Organic Chemistry, Leland Stanford Junior Universiip 



LELAND STANFORD'S VIEWS 
ON HIGHER EDUCATION 

David Starr Jordan 
President, Leland Stanford Junior University 



Published by the University 

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA 

UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1901 



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ADDRESSES AT THE TENTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 

LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 

MAY 29, 1901 



THE GOSPEL OF WORK 

Qeorge Mann Richardson 
Professor of Organic Chemistry, Leland Stanford Junior University 



LELAND STANFORD'S VIEWS 
ON HIGHER EDUCATION 

David Starr Jordan 
President, Leland Stanford Junior University 



Published by the University 

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA 

UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1901 



9Ag"0i 



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THE GOSPEL OF WORK. 

George Mann Richardson. 

Horace Greeley is said once to have made the remark : 
" Of all horned cattle, the college graduate is the most to 
be feared." 

There still lingers in some quarters a decided prejudice 
against the college graduate. You who are going out from 
us to-day as graduates will no doubt be made to feel this. 
It rests with you, in part, to determine whether the next 
class that goes from the University shall find this prejudice 
greater or less than you will find it. It is not very difficult 
for us to see some of the reasons for this lack of confidence. 
In the first place, I do not believe that it is in most cases a 
prejudice against a higher education or against educated 
persons, except as it is owing to a confusion of terms. It 
is common to assume that the college graduate is necessar- 
ily an educated man or woman, but this is a fundamental 
error. It has thus far been found impossible, even in our 
best and most thorough colleges and universities, to devise 
any system of exercises, requirements, or examinations 
which will make it perfectly certain that the holders of 
their diplomas shall be educated men and women. 

An education is, in one respect, like a contagious disease 
— not every one who is exposed to it takes it. The diploma 
which you receive to-day is merely a certificate that you 
have been exposed to an education ; whether you have 
taken it or not, your future life alone will determine. Un- 
doubtedly a great part of the prejudice against the college 
graduate comes from direct contact with the uneducated 
college graduate, and in so far as this is the case, I believe 



4 The Gospel of Worh. 

Horace Greeley was right, — such college graduates are, to 
say the least, to be viewed with suspicion. 

The chances are that any young man who has spent four 
of the best years of his life in college and has neglected to 
make good use of his opportunities, will continue to follow 
the same course after he graduates ; and such are not the 
kind of people for whom " the world stands aside to let pass." 

The most important principle for our guidance in life is 
a thorough realization of the law that nothing that is 
worth having is to be had without work. When this law 
has been completely accepted and becomes part of our 
moral fibre, other things will be added unto us: — we have 
started on the right road. 

Ignorance of this law or the effort to evade it is the cause 
of much disappointment, misery, and crime. There are no 
short-cuts to knowledge, to power, or to happiness. *' Em- 
inence in any great undertaking implies intense devotion 
thereto, implies patient, laborious exertion, either in the do- 
ing or the preparation for it. " He who fancies greatness 
an accident, a lucky hit, a stroke of good fortune, does sadly 
degrade the achievement contemplated and undervalues the 
unerring wisdom and inflexible justice with which the uni- 
verse is ruled." Those who are continually seeking an un- 
earned happiness are the people that the world can best spare. 

An education which is itself acquired by hard work cannot 
be considered as a device for getting along in the world 
without work: it merely makes our work the more effective, 
it enables us to work at the long end of the lever, — but 
work we must. Genius is sometimes looked upon as a sub- 
stitute for hard work, but this too is an error, as we shall 
quickly recognize when we read the biographies of a few 
men of acknowledged genius. In fact, most men of this class 
have exhibited an astonishing capacity for work. On the 
other hand, it is really surprising how closely the results of 
application and energy resemble the results of genius. 

Any system of education which fails to develop in the 
individual a clear recognition of this great law of work must 



The Gospel of Work. 5 

remain unsatisfactory. The individual who fails to recog- 
nize this law or who does not act according to it cannot be 
considered as educated. 

The old system of education, in which the time was spent 
in studying Latin, Greek, and mathematics, was an excellent 
system for those to whom it appealed, as is proved by the 
grand characters that have been developed by it. It was, 
however, a very wasteful system, as many of the young men 
who went to college did not become interested in this par- 
ticular kind of work. Some of this latter class, however, 
were nevertheless educated by the contact with earnest and 
educated men and by the countless other educational forces 
continually at work outside of the classroom at every college. 

But too large a number of men succumbed to the habit, 
formed by four years' practice, of doing lifeless things in a 
listless way. 

An abundance of leisure is a trial to which few men are 
equal; it is a trial that should not needlessly be thrust upon 
young people before habits of work have been established. 

As the weakness of the old system came to be recognized, 
new subjects were added to the college curriculum to make 
it more generally attractive, or, as some would say, to make 
it " broader." There were added a little modern language 
study, a little history, a little political economy, a little 
science, and so on, until the older college course was so 
diluted that it offered very little training in serious 
scholarship, and the results very well illustrated the old 
adage, " He who embraces too much, holds but little." 

While the old difficulty was far from being overcome by 
these changes, a new difficulty, a lack of thoroughness, was 
introduced. "A broad education," — what crimes have been 
committed in that name! 

The demand still frequently voiced for a fixed course of 
study which shall best fit the "average man" for the life of 
to-day is wholly irrational. It is not worth while to ex- 
change the tyranny of the old fixed course of study for the 
tyranny of a new fixed course of study. 



6 The Gospel of Work. 

Owing to the endless variety of human characters and 
human tastes, and owing to the present extent of human 
knowledge and human activities, such a course of study is 
an absolute impossibility. Such a process for producing 
machine-made men would be prodigally extravagant of hu- 
man material. In thus attempting to produce a uniform 
product, the very best part of the mental equipment of 
many men would be cut away or hindered in growth to 
make them fit into a system which at best is artificial. The 
best preparation for the life of to-day is to know well some- 
thing worth knowing, — if possible, to know it better than any 
one else knows it. Such a knowledge is attained only when 
the work necessary to it strikes a responsive chord in the 
individual mind. 

Our American universities are tending in the right direc- 
tion, it seems to me, in offering the student a wide range of 
studies and then allowing him to select for himself those to 
which he will devote his attention. A university with un- 
limited means should extend knowledge and offer instruc- 
tion in every worthy subject. A subject to be worthy must 
be, first, such that its serious study offers good mental 
training, and second, such that a knowledge of it tends to- 
ward human advancement. But the university with un- 
limited means is an ideal which has no realization. 

It is the first duty of a university to do well that which 
it undertakes. There is no doubt but that much of the 
criticism which has been called forth by this introduction 
of "electives" into the university curriculum is more than 
justified by the consequent crippling, owing to inadequate 
means, of work previously undertaken, and to an equip- 
ment wholly inadequate to do justice to the new work. 
The expansion of the curriculum under such conditions is 
thoroughly dishonest, and the results are most deplorable. 
It is a vulgar form of self-advertisement to which no uni- 
versity should stoop. Desirable as it is to have a wide 
range of studies from which the student may select, expan- 
sion of the curriculum in any given institution is justifiable 



The Gospel of Work. 7 

only when the work already undertaken is adequately done. 

Since all universities are hampered from a lack of funds, 
it is eminently desirable that all universities should co- 
operate in this expansion of their curricula, and instead of 
following the old and narrow policy, dictated by petty 
jealousies, of establishing new departments because they 
have been established elsewhere, let each university look to 
develop where other universities have not developed, so 
that somewhere, here or there, the student will be able to 
find the thing he needs for his highest development. 

With ample opportunities for studying worthy subjects 
the student should be able to find in the university that 
thing which will best enable him to find his sphere of great- 
est usefulness in the world, that thing which awakens his 
enthusiasm, — and it is not of great importance what the thing 
is ; it is the awakening that is of supreme importance ; that 
is the first great step towards a sound education. 

One student will gain inspiration from the great epics 
of Homer, Dante, or Milton ; another will be thrilled and 
incited to higher effort by reading the earth's history in 
the earth's crust ; a third will have his soul stirred and be 
able to detect nature's immutable laws by the study of the 
venation in the wings of insects. Any work which is thus 
capable of inspiring men to new and nobler effort can ill be 
spared from our educational system. 

James Russell Lowell is reported to have said that his ad- 
miration for Dante lured him into the little learning that 
he possessed ; while the direction of Darwin's work was 
determined by his desire to know all about coral reefs. As 
often as not it is the teacher, and not the subject taught, 
that first arouses the interest of the student. 

Thomas Jefferson said of one of his old teachers, that the 
presence of that man on the faculty of the College of Wil- 
liam and Mary fixed the destinies of his life. The univer- 
sity that has a Mommsen, a Lowell, or an Agassiz in its 
faculty is in the possession of a power for good that is be- 
yond estimation. How important it is that the student 



8 The Gospel of Work. 

should be able to arrange his work so as to come into intimate 
contact with such men! 

The fear is often expressed that with such possibilities of 
choice the student may not choose wisely, — that he will over- 
specialize, that he will be too narrow in his selection ; 
and, strangely enough, this fear is most frequently expressed 
by those who look back to the older classical system as 
probably, after all, the golden age of education, and who 
look upon the new changes as an unwise catering to a 
popular demand. Will there ever again be such magnifi- 
cent specialization as when the student pursued the study 
of Latin for three years in the preparatory school, for four 
years in the college, and as much longer as his schooling 
extended? 

Indeed, it was, in my opinion, just this specialization 
that enabled the older system to produce such excellent re- 
sults. The thorough and extended study of a subject pro- 
duces the best kind of training. 

"The only true enthusiasm lies in specialization, and the 
effort to compass the whole realm of knowledge ends in be- 
wilderment and failure." The fear of narrowness that leads 
to a scattering, that kills enthusiasm and produces super- 
ficiality, is far more to be dreaded than narrowness. 

It is serious study that broadens ; not the study of any 
specific subject or of many subjects Thorough knowledge 
of any kind begets respect for, and sympathy with, thorough 
knowledge of every kind. The mastery of one subject gives 
strength to master another. 

So long as universities refuse to give place in their 
courses to the trivial, the superficial, and the sham, over- 
specialization is a danger that need have no terrors. 

The student who enters the university and selects his 
studies with a view to their bearing upon his future calling 
is pursuing a thoroughly rational course. After spending 
four years in the serious study of things, even though they 
have a direct bearing upon his life-work, if the mind of the 
student is still narrow, then there is no implement in the 



The Gospel of Work. 9 

educational workshop with which it can be broadened. It 
is well for us to remember in this connection that there are 
minds which no system of education yet devised seems to 
broaden, minds which never gain the power to look upon 
any subject except from the bread-and-butter point of 
view. 

In an address, delivered not long since, Professor Charles 
Eliot Norton deplored the tendency of our times as exhibited 
in the decay of principle in our public men, and as an antidote 
to this he recommended a more universal and a more 
thorough study of English literature. Even among those 
who believe the evils pictured to be true, many would be 
inclined to smile at the remedy suggested. 

Yet the remedy is a good one. Its value lies not in any 
specific quality of English literature as distinguished from 
other branches of knowledge, but rather in the inspiration, 
the uplift, and the appreciation of truth that comes from 
earnest and thorough study of any worthy subject. 

The advocates of the older system of education are now 
for the most part ready to admit that recent changes are 
perhaps justifiable upon purely utilitarian grounds. In- 
deed, when we look about and note the wonderful material 
advancement made possible by a more general and a more 
exact knowledge of natural laws, it would be captious to 
deny this. But many of them still believe that, when it 
comes to the development of real culture, the new education 
can only helplessly appeal to the old. 

In consequence, we hear much about so-called " culture 
studies" as distinguished from others, which, by implication 
at least, stand on a distinctly lower plane. In this connec- 
tion allow me to quote from a recent editorial in the Nation 
called forth by certain changes in the entrance require- 
ments of Columbia University intended to permit the sub- 
stitution of an increased amount of mathematics for some 
of the Latin previously required. 

*' President Low's recommendation," says the writer in the 
Nation, '' will certainly be cited and appealed to as a 



10 The Gospel of Work. 

precedent by lesser colleges and universities; and in many a 
Western faculty Columbia and Cornell will be held up as 
bright examples of modern tendencies in the education in 
the East. . . . We have before us the problem of articu- 
lating the public school with the college. It is no easy 
task. Western universities (most of them are really 
colleges), growing up under local conditions and holding 
utilitarian or scientific ideals before them, have not been 
vexed by the problem, but our stronger Eastern universities 
and colleges have it still to work out. 

*' While these institutions have met the modern demand 
for scientific training, they have also sought to retain their 
ideals of culture, and most of them have* succeeded in the 
effort. The modern public school, being nearer the popular 
heart, has sacrificed ideals of culture to those of science, so 
that, while the ordinary public schools can send up to the 
college or university students prepared to continue their edu- 
cation along scientific lines, moat of them are unable to fur- 
nish the necessary propaedeutic for culture. President Low^s 
idea of a solution is simply and frankly to follow Western 
experience ; to unify the two along the line of physical science 
and utilitarian aims — aline of least resistance — and let 
the culture go. . . . Thus, when we are forced to the con- 
clusion that our classical machinery of elementary culture 
is inadequate to modern intellectual life and to our modern 
educational conditions, we think we must abandon culture, 
at least elementary culture, altogether, and devote the 
earlier years of training to a preparation for the pursuit of 
science. Small wonder if those of us who cannot ignore the 
value of culture are thus compelled to oppose the develop- 
ment of science as the only means of retaining what culture 
there is in our educational system." 

According to this writer, it would appear that culture is 
something that cannot possibly be attained by the study of 
any science. Does culture, then, consist of a certain number 
of definite attainments, the possession of which means cul- 
ture, and the lack of which excludes culture? Is it possible 



The Gospel of Work. 11 

that a certain prescribed course of study produces in all 
minds the uniform results which we call culture, while in all 
other things we observe the most striking differences in the 
ways in which different minds react toward one and the 
same discipline? 

Is not culture rather a combination of character and at- 
tainments? A true basis for culture in the individual is a 
sincere love of truth, and a firm belief that all truth is safe. 

Emerson says of the possessor of culture : " He must have 
a catholicity, a power to see with a free and disengaged look 
every object." Culture is found among men of the most 
widely different training, and it is also frequently lacking 
in men whose training has been all that thought could 
suggest. 

May we not therefore justly conclude that there are many 
roads leading to culture, and that, owing to the great diver- 
sity of minds and characters among men, when we limit the 
number of these roads we simply diminish the number of 
persons who attain culture? The evidence seems clear that 
there are many who attain culture by a study of the ancient 
languages and literatures who never would attain it by a 
study of the physical sciences ; likewise there are many who 
reach culture through a study of the physical sciences who 
never would reach it by a study of the classics. 

Why not leave both avenues of approach unobstructed? 

The folly of keeping a Pasteur at writing Latin verses is 
quite equalled by the folly of keeping a Tennyson at peer- 
ing through a microscope. 

The notion is prevalent that such freedom of choice, 
which renders possible the easy following of one's own in- 
clination, cannot possibly furnish the same discipline as 
may be had by the student's being forced to pursue some 
line of work that may perhaps be more or less distasteful. 
It is doubtless true that human beings, like other things in 
nature, tend to follow the line of least resistance. Yet it is 
by overconaing resistance that we gain strength. There is 
here a real danger to the student which can be avoided 



12 The Gospel of Work. 

only by the constant vigilance of the university authorities. 

Only worthy subjects adequately cared for should be 
found in the university curriculum. 

As has been already stated, the most important thing to 
be acquired in a general education is the habit of work, and 
this is most easily and most surely acquired by doing work 
that is congenial. This habit once acquired, all work as- 
sumes a different aspect, and growth in all directions is 
henceforth possible. On the other hand, the attitude toward 
work and the habits acquired by enforced contact with un- 
congenial work are apt to dull enthusiasm, to stifle ambi- 
tion, and future growth becomes much more problematical. 

It is quite human for the man who has enjoyed the 
privileges of the older classical education and who has 
drawn therefrom inspiration, pleasure, and appreciation of 
the beautiful, to look upon the trend of modern education 
with misgivings and suspicion and to raise his voice in a 
cry of warning. It is perhaps equally human for the 
scientist who has likewise drawn from his work, and with- 
out the aid of the classical education, inspiration and pleas- 
ure and appreciation of the beautiful, to lose patience with 
the claims of superior excellence advanced for the classical 
training. Is it not time, however, for educators to borrow a 
page from one another's experience, and to recognize once 
for all that the desirable qualities that we class under the 
head of education and culture are not produced in different 
minds by identical processes? May we not welcome every 
new field of knowledge and recognize its power for training 
youth? May we not look upon it as some new tool in 
our workshop by means of which we may be able to reach 
some minds that it has been impossible to reach with the 
old implements? 

This joining of hands upon the part of educators will re- 
quire some exercise of culture, some "power to see with a 
free and disengaged look every object." We must make 
some effort in order to understand one another. We must 
remember that our estimate of the relative importance of 



The Gospel of Work. 13 

things is largely a result of our point of view, and that the 
same things appear quite differently from different points of 
view. 

Human knowledge has now vastly outgrown the grasp of 
any single mind ; ignorant in some departments of knowl- 
edge the most scholarly and the most industrious must re- 
main, and that without shame. Let no one deceive himself 
with a superficial omniscience. The next best thing to 
knowing a thing well is to know that we do not know it. 

Why should educators waste time and energy in trying to 
compare the values of different forms of knowledge, when 
their lack of omniscience renders them incapable of forming 
just judgments? Our own specialty is obviously to each of 
us the most important form of knowledge ; let us show this 
faith that we have in our specialty not by criticising or 
ridiculing other forms of knowledge which we are incapable 
of understanding, not by hindering and checking the 
growth of other things, but rather by advancing that 
specialty to our utmost by honest work and earnest en- 
deavor. 

Many of the faults ascribed to over-education and its un- 
fitting of people for their true spheres in life can be directly 
traced to the undue importance which has in the past been 
attributed to particular forms of knowledge and activity 
and to a consequent implied degradation inflicted upon 
equally meritorious forms of knowledge and activity. 
Aristotle^s dictum that " all manual work is degrading," 
that " all paid employments are vulgar," has cost the world 
dear by the long maintaining of false ideals. 

Slowly, however, more just views are prevailing, and al- 
ready the men who do the world's work are meeting with the 
esteem due them from all right-minded persons. 

The student who is graduated from a university where he 
has had large freedom of choice in the selection of his studies 
has less excuse for remaining uneducated than one who has 
been forced through a prescribed curriculum, much of which 
may have possessed no interest for him. Upon you, therefore 



14 The Gospel of Work. 

as graduates of Stanford, rests the increased responsibility 
of proving yourselves to be educated men and women. 
It may safely be assumed that a considerable majority of 
you have formed the habit of work, that you have accumu- 
lated a fund of useful information, and that in accumulat- 
ing it you have learned how knowledge is obtained. You 
are then prepared to walk on your own feet and to think 
your own thoughts. But no one supposes that your edu- 
cation is ended. If that were the case this would have been 
called "Ending Day" instead of *' Commencement Day." 

In closing, I will, if I may, leave with you this short pre- 
scription for happiness : Choose your life-work with care, 
with deliberation, if need be ; but when it is chosen, enter 
upon it with zeal. Let your attitude toward your work be 
such as was recently advised by President Hadley from 
this platform, " Not how much you can get out of it, but 
rather how much you can put into it." Be not over- 
particular about the importance of your first position — the 
important thing is not where you begin but where you end. 
At first the chief thing is to begin. Do not flatter yourself 
or discourage yourself by comparing your own progress 
with the progress of your neighbor or your friend, but rather 
live up to your own best all of the time, and that best will 
constantly grow better and your progress and ultimate 
success will take care of themselves. Fix your eyes upon 
the advantages that you have, rather than upon those that 
you have not. 

Finally, "Look forward, not backvrard ; look up, not 
down ; and lend a hand." 



LELAND STANFORD'S VIEWS ON HIGHER 
EDUCATION. 

David Starr Jordan. 

It is my pleasant duty once again to welcome a body of 
young men and young women into the ever-widening circle 
of Stanford Alumni, now after ten years numbering 1402. 
The certificates I have just placed in your hands testify to 
our confidence in your ability and your purposes. In our 
eyes, you, like those who have passed before you, are youth 
of promise. We have done the best we know in aiding you 
in your preparation for usefulness. The rest lies in your 
own hands. 

One of the greatest of the joys we call academic is that of 
looking into the eyes of young men and young women with 
the feeling that some small part at least of their strength is 
the work of our own minds and hearts. Something of the 
teacher we see in the student, and, from master to pupil, 
there is a chain of heredity as real, if not as literally exact, 
as the bodily likeness that runs in the blood. 

To the founder of a university a kindred satisfaction is 
given, and not for a day or a period only, but for *' chang- 
ing cycles of years.'' It is his part to exchange gold for 
abundance of life. It is his to work mightily in the affairs 
of men centuries after his personal opinions and influence 
are forgotten. The moral value of the possession of wealth 
lies in the use to which it is put. There can be no better 
use than that of making young men and women wise and 
clean and strong. 

Of this right use of money your lives and mine have 
been in large degree a product. This fact gives me the 
theme of my discourse this morning, the work of Leland 



16 Leland Stanford's Views 

Stanford Junior University as it existed in the mind of the 
founder before teachers or students came to Palo Alto to 
make it real. 

Our university is now just ten years old. Of all founda- 
tions in America it is the youngest save one, the University 
of Chicago. Yet as universities go, in our New World, it 
has attained its majority. It is old enough to have a char- 
acter and to be judged by it. 

For the broad principles of education all universities 
stand, but each one works out its function in its own fash- 
ion. It is this fashion, this turn of method, which sets off 
one from another, which gives each its individual character. 
What this character shall be no one force can determine. 
Its final course is a resultant of the initial impulse, the 
ideals it develops, and the resistance of its surroundings. 
No one influence can control the final outcome. No one 
will can determine the result, where a thousand other wills 
are also active. Nor is the environment finally potent. 
Environment is inert, except as the individual wills are pit- 
ted against it. 

In our own university the initial impulse came from the 
heart and brain of Leland Stanford. The ideals it has 
upheld were his before they were ours. They had been 
carefully wrought out in his mind before he called like- 
minded men to his service to carry them into action. It is 
well once in a while to recall this fact. 

I need not repeat the story of Mr. Stanford's life. He 
was long the most conspicuous public man of California. 
He was her war governor, wise and patient, and respected 
of all men before his railroad enterprises made him the 
wealthiest citizen of the state. His wide popularity, the 
influence, personal and political, which he acquired, did not 
arise from his wealth. Wealth, influence, and popularity 
sprang alike from his personal qualities, his persistence, his 
integrity, his long-headed ness, and his simplicity, which 
kept him always in touch with the people. " He was active," 
it was said, ^' when other men were idle ; he was generous 



On Higher Education. 17 

when others were grasping ; he was lofty when other men 
were base." He was in all relations of life thoroughly a 
man, and of that type — simple, earnest, courageous, 
effective — which we like to call American. 

The need to train his own son first turned his thoughts 
to educational matters. His early acquaintance with Pro- 
fessor Agassiz, perhaps the greatest of American teachers, 
helped to direct these thoughts into channels of wisdom. 
From Agassiz he derived a realizing sense of the possibili- 
ties of human knowledge and the impelling force of man's 
intellectual needs, — that hunger and thirst after truth which 
only the student knows. " Man's physical needs are slight," 
he said, "but his intellectual needs are bounded only by his 
capacity to conceive." In the darkness of bereavement the 
thought came to Mr. Stanford that the duty of his life 
should be to carry his plans of educating his own son into 
effect for the sons of others. After the long vigil of a dreary 
night he awoke with these words on his lips : "The children 
of California shall be my children." And with character- 
istic energy he made this vision fact. Articles of endowment 
were drawn up, lands and buildings and teachers were pro- 
vided, and on the first day of October, 1891, the new 
university opened its doors to the children of California, and 
to those of the rest of the world as well. 

With all bright auspices of earth and sky, of hope and 
purpose, of wealth and generosity, the new university began. 
In its history all who are here to-day have taken some part. 
With many of us it represents the best portion of our lives. 
Of this I do not now wish to speak, but rather to discuss the 
original impulse of the founder. What was Leland Stan- 
ford's idea of a university, its work and life? 

We learn, first, that he would leave the university free to 
grow with the coming ages. He would extend no dead 
hand from the grave to limit its activities or to control its 
movements. The deed of gift is in favor of education pure 
and simple. It has no hampering clause, and the only 
end in view is that of the help of humanity through the 



18 Leland Stanford's Views 

extension of knowledge. '*We hope," he said, "that this 
institution will endure through long ages. Provisions 
regarding details of management, however wise they may be 
at present, might prove to be mischievous under conditions 
which may arise in the future." 

As a practical man accustomed to go to the heart of 
things, Mr. Stanford had little respect for educational mil- 
linery and for the conventionalities which have grown up 
about the great institutions of the Old World. He saw 
clearly the value of thoroughness, the need of freedom, the 
individuality of development, but cared little for the machin- 
ery by which these ends were achieved. So it was decreed 
that the new university should be simple in its organization, 
with only those details of structure which the needs of the 
times should develop within it. If it must have precedents 
and traditions, it must make its own. *'I would have this 
institution," he said, " help to fit men and women for use- 
fulness in this life, by increasing their individual power of 
production, and by making them good company for them- 
selves and others." 

A friend once argued with him that there is already too 
much education, and that to increase it further is simply to 
swell the volume of discontent. " I insisted," Mr. Stanford 
said, "that there cannot be too much education, any more 
than too much health or intelligence. Do you happen to 
know any man who has been too well educated? Where does 
he live? What is his address ? If you cannot find such a man, 
you cannot speak of over-education." There has been un- 
wise education, or misfit education. Some highly educated 
men are neither wise nor fit, and there is a kind of educa- 
tion that comes from experience and not from books. But 
with all this, too thorough or too good a training no one 
ever had. Ignorance is shadow. Education is light. Noth- 
ing is more unpractical than darkness, nothing is more 
practical than sunshine. 

Mr. Stanford believed that no educational system could 
be complete in which entrance to the university was a 



On Higher Education. 19 

detached privilege of the chosen few. He believed in the 
unbroken ladder from the kindergarten to the university, a 
ladder that each one should be free to climb, as far as his 
ability or energy should permit. He believed, with Ian 
Maclaren, in keeping the path well-trodden from the farm- 
house to the university. He asked that this sentence be 
placed on the University Register: ''A generous education 
is the birthright of every man and woman in America." In 
Emerson's words, " America means opportunity," and op- 
portunity comes through training to receive it. To have 
such training is to be truly free born, and this is the birth- 
right of each child of the republic. 

Science is knowledge tested and set in order, and each 
advance in knowledge carries with it a corresponding incre- 
ment of power. A machine to Mr. Stanford was not a mere 
saver of labor, but an aid to labor, increasing its efficiency 
and therefore adding to the value of men. By greater 
knowledge of the forces of nature we acquire greater skill in 
turning these forces into man's service through the harness 
of machinery. In increase of scientific knowledge he found 
the secret of human power. An education which does not 
disclose the secret of power is unworthy of the name. " We 
may always advance toward the -infinite," was a favorite 
saying of his. He could find no limit to the development 
of civilization. The possibilities of human progress ex- 
pressed to him the measure of infinite goodness. In his 
own words, "The beneficence of the Creator toward man on 
earth, and the possibilities of humanity, are one and the 
same." 

But in his forecast of the myriad triumphs of applied 
science, he did not forget that knowledge itself must precede 
any use man can make of it. Pure science must always go 
before applied science. The higher forms of thought have 
their place in mental growth as necessities in the concrete 
preparation for action. 

In the new university he decreed that "the work in ap- 
plied sciences shall be carried on side by side with that in 



20 Leland Stanford's Vieivs 

the pure sciences and the humanities, and that, so far as 
may be, all lines of work included in the plan of the uni- 
versity shall be equally fostered." 

No other university has recognized so distinctly the ab- 
solute democracy of knowledge. The earlier traditions of 
Cornell pointed in this direction, and for this reason Mr. 
Stanford found in Cornell, rather than in Harvard, Yale, 
Johns Hopkins, or Michigan, the nearest existing approach 
to his own ideal. It was Ezra Cornell's hope 'Ho found an 
institution where any person could find instruction in any 
study." Cornell and Stanford, in so far as they are loyal 
to these traditions, know neither favored students nor 
favored studies. No class of men are chosen to the ex- 
clusion of others, and no class of studies is given a fallacious 
importance through force of academic pressure or through 
inertia of academic tradition. While various kinds of 
knowledge are of varying worth to different persons, each 
has its own value to the world, and the value to the indi- 
vidual must be determined in each case by itself. The uni- 
versity should be no respecter of persons. It is not called 
on to approve or condemn the various orders of genius that 
come to it for training. There has been no greater hin- 
drance to educational progress than the hierarchy of studies, 
the fiction that certain kinds of work had an invisible 
value not to be measured by tangible results, 

Mr. Stanford shared with Agassiz the idea that the es- 
sential part of education was a thorough knowledge of some 
one thing, so firmly held as to be effective for practical re- 
sults. He believed in early choice of profession, in so far 
as early choice could be wise choice. The course of study, 
however broad and however long, should in all its parts 
look toward the final end of effective life. The profession 
chosen early gives a purpose and stimulus to all the inter- 
mediate courses of training. He saw clearly the need of 
individualism in education, and that courses of study 
should be built around the individual man as he is. The 
supposed needs of the average man as developed by a consen- 



On Higher Education, 21 

BUS of educational philosophers do not suffice for the actual 
man as he is in actual life. We must be fed with the food 
that is good for us. It is for us that it must be adapted, 
not for some average man in some average age. The ready- 
made curriculum belongs to the same category as ready- 
made clothing. It is something cheap and easy, for the 
man without individual needs. 

Mr. Stanford's belief that literature and engineering 
should be pursued side by side was shown by his wish to 
provide for both with equal generosity. And the students 
of each are the gainers by this relation. The devotee of 
classical culture is strengthened by his association with men 
to whom their college work is part of the serious duty of 
life. The student of engineering stands with both feet on 
the ground. His success in life depends on the exactness 
of his knowledge of machinery and of the basic principles 
of mechanics and mathematics. He must be in dead ear- 
nest if he would succeed at all. On the other hand, the 
student of realities gains by his association with the poet, 
the philosopher, and the artist. The finer aspects of life 
are brought to his notice, and from this association results 
tolerance and breadth of sympathy. 

That women should receive higher education as well as 
men was an axiom to Mr. Stanford. Coeducation was 
taken for granted from the first, and the young women of 
Stanford have never had to question the friendliness of 
their welcome. ''^ We have provided," Mr. Stanford says, 
"in the articles of endowment, that the education of the 
sexes shall be equal — deeming it of special importance that 
those who are to be the mothers of a future generation shall 
be fitted to mold and direct the infantile mind at its most 
critical period." 

The leading argument for coeducation is akin to the one 
just indicated for the union in one institution of the various 
lines of literature, art, science, and applied technology. 

In women^s education, as planned for women alone, the 
tendency is toward the study of beauty and order. Literature 



22 Leland Stanford's Views 

and language take precedence over science. Expression 
is valued more highly than action. In carrying this to 
an extreme, the necessary relation of thought to action 
becomes obscured. The scholarship developed tends to be 
ineffective, because it is not related to life. The educated 
woman is likely to master technique, rather than art; 
method, rather than substance. She may know a good 
deal, but be able to do nothing. Often her views of life 
must undergo painful changes before she can find her place 
in the world. 

In schools for men alone, the reverse condition often ob- 
tains. The sense of reality obscures the elements of beauty 
and fitness. It is of great advantage to both men and wo- 
men to meet on a plane of equality in education. Women 
are brought into contact with men who can do things — men 
in whom the sense of reality is strong, and who have defi- 
nite views in life. This influence affects them for good. It 
turns them away from sentimentalism. It is opposed to 
unwholesome forms of hysterical friendship. It gives tone 
to their religious thoughts and impulses. Above all, it 
tends to encourage action governed by ideals, as opposed to 
that resting on caprice. It gives them better standards of 
what is possible and impossible, when the responsibility for 
action is thrown upon them. 

In like manner, the association with wise, sane, and healthy 
women has its value for young men. This value has never 
been fully realized, even by the strongest advocates of coedu- 
cation. It raises their ideal of womanhood, and the highest 
manhood must be associated with such an ideal. 

It was the idea of the founders that each student should 
be taught the value of economy, — that lavish expenditures 
bring neither happiness nor success. " A student," it was 
said by one of the founders, ^' will be better fitted to battle 
with the trials and tribulations of life, if he (or she) has 
been taught the worth of money, the necessity of saving, 
and of overcoming a desire to imitate those who are better 
off in the world's goods. For, when he has learned how to 



On Higher Education. 28 

save and how to control inordinate desires, he will be rela- 
tively rich. During the past three and a half years of close 
observation on my part, the importance of economy has im- 
pressed itself forcibly upon me, and I wish it to be taught 
to all students of the university. Nature has made the 
surroundings of the university beautiful, and the substan- 
tial character of the buildings gives them an appearance of 
luxury. I wish this natural beauty and comparative lux- 
ury to impress upon the students the necessity of their 
preservation for the generations that are to follow. The 
lesson thus taught will remain with them through life and 
help them to teach the lesson to others. The university 
buildings and grounds are for their use while students, in 
trust for students to come." 

The value of the study of political and social science as a 
remedy for defects of government was clearly seen by Mr. 
Stanford. "All governments," he said, "are governments 
by public opinion, and in the long run every people is as 
well governed as it deserves." Hence increase of knowledge 
brings about better government. For help in such matters 
the people have a right to look to their universities and 
university men. It was his theory that the art of govern- 
ment is still in its infancy. " Legislation has not, as a rule, 
been against the people, but it has failed to do all the good 
it might." " No greater blow can be struck at labor than 
that which renders its products insecure." In the ex- 
tension of voluntary cooperation he saw a remedy for many 
present ills, as he saw in the law of mutual help the essence 
of our Christian civilization. He said, in laying the corner- 
stone : " Out of these suggestions grows the consideration of 
the great advantages, especially to the laboring man, of 
cooperation, by which each individual has the benefit of the 
intellectual and physical forces of his associates. It is by 
the intelligent application of these principles that there will 
be found the greatest lever to elevate the mass of humanity, 
and laws should be formed to protect and develop coopera- 
tive associations. . . . They will accomplish all that is 



LofC. 



24 Leland Stanford's Views 

sought to be secured by labor leagues, trades unions, and 
other federations of workmen, and will be free from the ob- 
jection of even impliedly attempting to take the unauthor- 
ized or wrongful control of the property, capital, or time of 
others." 

One result of voluntary cooperation, in Mr. Stanford's 
view, would be the development of the spirit of loyalty, the 
most precious tribute of the laboring man in any grade, in 
any field, to the interest or cause which he serves. One 
great evil of the present era of gigantic industrial organiza- 
tions is that it takes no account of the spirit of loyalty, 
without which no man can do his best work. The huge 
trust does away with the feeling of personal association. 
The equally huge trades union, in many of its operations, 
strikes directly at the personality of the individual workman. 
It makes him merely a pawn to be moved hither and 
thither in the current of industrial war. In the long run, 
no enterprise can flourish, unless those who carry it on 
throw themselves, heart and soul, into its service. On the 
other hand, no one can do a greater injury to the cause of 
labor than to take loyalty out of the category of working 
virtues. It is one of the traditional good traits of the 
healthy college man to be loyal to his college. This virtue 
Mr. Stanford would have cultivated in all effective ways, 
and in loyalty on both sides he would find a practical so- 
lution of most of the labor troubles of to-day. That he 
carried his ideas into his own practice is shown by the un- 
flinching devotion of all his own employees of whatever 
grade throughout his life. They were taught to believe in 
him, to believe in the worth of their own work, and thus to 
have respect for themselves. Much of the discontent of 
the day has its origin in lack of self-respect. The pawn 
that is moved in the game of sympathetic strike has no con- 
trol over his own actions, and therefore no respect for his 
own motives. The development of intelligent, voluntary co- 
operation, in the long run, must make the workman more 
than a machine. If he is such, in the long run again, he 



On Higher Education. 25 

will receive whatever he deserves. He will be a factor in 
civilization, which the unskilled, unthinking laborer is not. 

The great economic waste in labor often engaged Mr. Stan- 
ford's attention, and he found its remedy in education. 
'^Once," he said, "the great struggle of labor was to supply 
the necessities of life : now but a small portion of our people 
are so engaged. Food, clothing, and shelter are common in 
our country to every provident person, excepting, of course, 
in occasional accidental cases. The great demand for labor 
is to supply what may be termed intellectual wants, to 
which there is no limit, except that of intelligence to con- 
ceive. If all the relations and obligations of man were 
properly understood, it would not be necessary for people 
to make a burden of labor. The great masses of the toilers 
now are compelled to perform such an* amount of labor as 
makes life often wearisome. An intelligent system of edu- 
cation would correct this inequality It would make the 
humblest laborer's work more valuable, it would increase 
both the demand and supply for skilled labor, and reduce 
the number of the non-producing class. It would dignify 
labor, and ultimately would go far to wipe out the mere 
distinctions of wealth and ancestry. It would achieve a 
bloodless revolution and establish a republic of industry, 
merit, and learning. 

" How near to that state we may be, or how far from it, 
we cannot now tell. It seems very far when we con- 
template the great standing armies of Europe, where over five 
millions of men (or about one for every twelve adult males) 
are marching about with guns on their shoulders to preserve 
the peace of the nations, while hovering near them is an 
innumerable force of police to preserve the peace of individ- 
uals ; but when we remember the possibilities of civilization 
and the power of education, we can foresiee a time when 
these soldiers and policemen shall be changed to useful, pro- 
ducing citizens, engaged in lifting the burdens of the people 
instead of increasing them. And yet, extravagant as are 
the nations of Europe in standing armies and preparations 



26 Leland Stanford's Viev)s 

for war, "their extravagance in the waste of labor is still 
greater. Education, by teaching the intelligent use of ma- 
chinery, is the only remedy for such waste." 

That the work of the university should be essentially 
specialized, fitting the individual for definite forms of 
higher usefulness, was an idea constantly present with Mr. 
Stanford. He had no interest in general education as an end 
in itself. He had no desire to fit men for the life of leisure, 
or for any life which did not involve a close adaptation of 
means to ends. 

That the new university would in time attract great num- 
bers of students, Mr. Stanford believed as a matter of course, 
although he found few California teachers who shared his 
optimism. But he was never deceived with the cheap test 
of numbers in estimating the value of institutions. He 
knew that a few hundred men well trained and under 
high influences would count for more than as many 
thousands, hurried in droves over a ready-made curriculum 
by young tutors, themselves scarcely out of college. So it 
was decreed that numbers for numbers' sake should never 
be a goal of Stanford University. And he further made the 
practical request that not one dollar directly or indirectly 
should be spent in advertising. The university has no 
goods for which it is anxious to find customers. 

Mr. Stanford insisted as a vital principle that the univer- 
sity exists for the benefit of its students, present, past, and 
future. It has no existence or function save as an instru- 
ment of education. To this principle all others should be 
subordinate. In his opening address Mr. Stanford said to 
the students of the Pioneer Class : '* You are the most im- 
portant factor in this university. It is for jonr benefit that 
it has been established." 

The greatest need of the student is the teacher. Mr. Stan- 
ford said : " In order that the president may have the as- 
sistance of a competent staff of professors, we have pro- 
vided that the best talent obtainable shall be procured and 
that liberal compensation shall always be offered." Again 



On Higher Education. 27 

he said: "Ample endowment may have been provided, 
intelligent management may secure large income, students 
may present themselves in numbers, but in the end the 
faculty makes or mars the university." 

Compared with the character of the faculty every other 
element in the university is of relatively little importance. 
Great teachers make a university great. The great teacher 
must always leave a great mark on every youth with whom 
he comes in contact. The chief duty of the college president 
is the choice of teachers. If he has learned the art of sur- 
rounding himself with men who are clean, sane, and 
scholarly, all other matters of university administration 
will take care of themselves. He cannot fail if he has good 
men around him. And in the choice of teachers the ele- 
ment of personal sanity seemed of first importance to Mr. 
Stanford, — the ability to see things as they are. The uni- 
versity chair should be a center of clear seeing from which 
right acting should radiate. 

That the university should be a center of cooperating re- 
search was a vital element in Mr. Stanford's plans. A 
man content with the truth that now is, and without ambi- 
tion to venture into the unknown, should not hold the chair 
of a university professor. The incentive for research should 
be within, not without. Its motive should be not the de- 
sire of individual fame but the love of knowledge. 

In proportion to the extent to which it widens the range of 
human knowledge and of human power, in that degree does 
an institution deserve the name of university. The value of 
its original work is the best single test by which a university 
may be judged ; and as it is the best, so is it also the 
severest. 

In its public relations, the university stands for infinite 
patience, tbe calm testing of ideas and ideals. It conducts 
no propaganda, it controls no affairs of business or of public 
action. It is the judge of the principles of wisdom and the 
ways of nature. The details of action it must leave to men 
whose business it is to guide the currents of the moment. 



28 Leland Stanford's Views 

When Leland Stanford Junior University was founded 
it was provided that in its religious life, as in its scientific 
investigations, it should be wholly free from outside control. 
No religious sect or organization and no group of organiza- 
tions should have dominion over it. The university should 
exist for its own sake, to carry out its own purposes, and to 
bring out its own results in its own way. 

In this regard the die is cast, once for all. The choice of 
the founders of the university was deliberate and final. They 
chose the path of intellectual and religious freedom, in the 
very interest of religion itself. Religion is devotion in ac- 
tion. In its higher reaches it must be individual, because 
it is a function of the individual soul which must stand in 
perpetual protest against the religion that finds its end in 
forms and ceremonies and organizations. 

Religion must form the axis of personal character, and its 
prime importance the university cannot ignore. To at- 
tain its culture it may use indirect rather than direct 
means, the influence of effort and character rather than the 
imposition of forms. To accept ecclesiastical help is to in- 
vite ecclesiastical control toward ecclesiastical ends. In 
the Grant of Endowment it was required that the trustees 
should ' prohibit sectarian instruction, but have taught 
in the university the immortality of the soul, the existence 
of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and obedience to 
his laws as the highest duty of man.' 

This requirement was a simple reflection of Mr. Stanford's 
own religious character, as expressed in the words of one 
very near to him : " If a firm belief in a beneficent Creator, 
a profound admiration for Jesus of Nazareth and his teach- 
ings, and the certainty of a personal life hereafter, consti- 
tute religion, then Leland Stanford was a religious man. 
The narrow walls of a creed could not confine him ; there- 
fore he was not a professed member of any church, for in 
each confession of faith he found something to which he 
could not subscribe. But for the principles of religion he 
had a profound veneration ; in his heart were the true senti- 



On Higher Education. 29 

ments of Christianity, and he often said that in his opinion 
the Golden Rule was the corner-stone of all true religion." 

The founders believed truly that freedom of thought and 
action would promote morality and religion, that a deeper, 
fuller religious life would arise from the growth of the in- 
dividual, that only where the " winds of freedom " blow will 
spring up the highest type of religious development. For 
character is formed from within by the efforts and strivings 
and aspirations of the individual. It can never be imposed 
from without. The will is made strong from choosing the 
right, not from having right action enforced upon it. The 
life of man is " made beautiful and sweet through self- 
devotion and through self-restraint.'' But this must be 
chosen voluntarily, else it fails of its purpose. 

The growth of Leland Stanford Junior University must 
remain the best evidence of its founder's wisdom. He had 
the sagacity to recognize the value of higher education and 
the patriotism to give the rewards of a successful life to its 
advancement. He had the rarer wisdom to discriminate 
between the real and the temporary in university or- 
ganization and management, and his provision is for the 
genuine and permanent, not for that "which speedily 
passes away." Still more rare, he had the forethought to 
leave to each succeeding generation the duty of adapting 
its details of administration and methods to the needs of 
the time. 

If the founder we love and the founder whose memory we 
revere had said, *' We will found a university so strong that 
it may endure for all the centuries, and whose organization 
shall be so free and flexible that in each age it shall reflect 
the best spirit of the time," they could not have given it 
greater freedom of development than it has to-day. For 
the glory of the university must lie in its freedom, in that 
freedom which cannot fall into license, nor lose itself in 
waywardness, — that freedom which knows but one bond or 
control, the eternal truth of God. 



